The Cure Read Online Free PDF Page A

thousand years. I didn’t mention the protecting part or how we could be killed. Time enough for that later. “So Stella is actually your fifth great-aunt or something like that. But she’s only lived a couple of centuries—that’s rather young in Unbounded terms.”
    “She’s here in Portland?” Mari’s voice shook and her face still resembled the color of paste. In all, I thought she’d taken it rather well. Better than I had.
    “She’s with a cousin of yours now—a fourth cousin. Oliver Parkin. He also Changed.” His missing finger had miraculously regrown last month, and Stella had stepped in to prevent him from announcing it to the world.
    Mari blinked and mumbled, “I have a cousin?”
    “Several, in fact. But only one Unbounded.” I certainly wasn’t as good at this as Stella had promised I’d be. I wished I could reach out and soothe Mari’s mind—it would be easy enough since I knew her so well and was still touching her arm—but I respected Mari too much to try to control her reaction. Instead, I erected a partial block in my own mind. Not thick enough to cause a total blackout, but enough to protect me from her confusion. Besides, I needed to focus my awareness on the darkness, in case any more surprises lurked there unseen.
    The men headed toward a clump of trees where a jumble of other figures lay heaped on the frosted grass. I could tell from the position of one man that he was dead, but life forces still radiated from the others. Gaven released the younger Hunter and took a syringe with a needle from Ritter. Making sure their captives stayed unconscious and quiet. A man dressed suspiciously like Trevor lay with the men, but I caught Mari’s attention before she saw him.
    “We were relatively certain you’d be Unbounded with your parentage,” I continued. “Well actually, not all that certain, but very hopeful. Your cousin has two siblings who didn’t Change, and a younger brother who may or may not. It’s too soon to tell. But we’re sure now about both of you, and we’d like you to join us.”
    Mari stopped walking. “Join you?”
    I held out my hand, palm up. “Trust me, okay? I know this is like nothing you’ve ever heard, but it’s all true.”
    She put her hand on top of mine, her head tipping forward slightly. “I—I want to see Stella.”
    I smiled. “Ask her to show you her ring.” I turned her hand over to show the ring’s intertwining yellow-gold leaves. “She has one exactly like it.” I hoped the connection would help Mari realize where she belonged. A proof of sorts.
    Mari let her hand fall from mine. “If I’m going to live for two thousand years, what about Trevor?”
    Even though I disliked him, I understood her pain. It was a lump that sat on your chest, invisible until from one moment to the next, it threatened to suffocate you. “Let’s talk about that later, okay?”
    She nodded, releasing a puff of air. “So that’s why you’re never winded when we go jogging. Because you’re Unbounded? Your body is always healing itself?”
    The grueling daily training in the wee hours of the morning had something to do with my physical condition, but mostly it was because of the gene. “You haven’t been out of breath, either—at least not compared to last month.”
    I put an arm around her and led her in the direction of the parking lot, taking a wide circuit around the sprawled bodies and keeping up a steady conversation so she’d look in my direction instead of at the men. There was no way to hide all of them, but there was only one she really cared about and so far luck was on my side.
    “Are your friends going to kill those men?” Mari asked.
    “No. They’ll just wake up with a bit of a headache. We don’t kill people.” Unless we had to, of course. I’d once killed a man I’d loved—or thought I had at the time. His belated Change meant I hadn’t killed him after all, though death might have been better for him than his final fate,